Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XXIV.

A SEA FIGHT--AN­OTH­ER IDEA OF THE PI­LOT'S--THE BOUDEUSE.

The cap­tain of the _Hobo­ken_ was rather pleased than oth­er­wise when the look-​out re­port­ed the strange sail to show En­glish col­ors. He looked rather glum, how­ev­er, half an hour af­ter­wards, when the same voice bawled that she was a bull-​dog look­ing craft, schooner-​rigged, and pierced for six­teen guns. The Yan­kee had hoped to fall in with a fat West In­dia­man, in­stead of which he had now to deal with a man-​of-​war, car­ry­ing, per­haps, a larg­er weight of met­al than him­self.

The heads of the two ships were stand­ing in to­wards each oth­er, there was no wind to speak of, but ev­ery hour less­ened the dis­tance that sep­arat­ed the an­tag­onists.

“Pi­lot,” said the cap­tain, ad­dress­ing Willis, “be kind enough to let me know what you think of that craft.”

“I think,” said Willis, tak­ing the tele­scope, “I have had my eyes on her be­fore. Aye, aye, just as I thought. An old tub of a Spaniard con­vert­ed in­to an En­glish cruis­er, and com­mand­ed by Com­modore Trun­cheon, I shouldn't won­der. She has caught a Tar­tar this time, how­ev­er. Noth­ing of a sail­er. If a breeze springs up, you may eas­ily give her the slip, if you like, cap­tain.”

“Give her the slip! No, not if I can help it. My cruise hith­er­to has not been very suc­cess­ful, and I must send her in­to New York as a prize. Mr. Brill,” added he, ad­dress­ing the of­fi­cer next in com­mand, “pre­pare for ac­tion.”

In an in­stant all was com­mo­tion and bus­tle on deck. Half an hour af­ter, the cap­tain, now in full uni­form, took a hasty glance at the po­si­tion of his crew. A por­tion of the men were sta­tioned at the guns, with light­ed match­es. Oth­ers were en­gaged in heat­ing shot, and prepar­ing oth­er in­stru­ments of de­struc­tion. Jack and Fritz, armed with mus­kets, were ready to act as sharp-​shoot­ers as soon as the en­emy came with­in range, and Willis was stand­ing be­side them, with his hands in his pock­ets, qui­et­ly smok­ing his pipe.

“What, Pi­lot!” ex­claimed the cap­tain in pass­ing, “don't you in­tend to take part in the skir­mish?”

“I am much your debtor, cap­tain, but I can­not do that.”

“And these young men?”

“They are not En­glish­men, and your kind­ness to them en­ti­tles you to claim their as­sis­tance. I am sor­ry that hon­or and du­ty pre­vent me giv­ing you mine.”

“No mat­ter, cap­tain,” said Fritz, “my broth­er and my­self will do du­ty for three.”

“Then, Pi­lot, you had bet­ter go be­low.”

“With your per­mis­sion, cap­tain, I would rather stay and look on.”

“But what is the use of ex­pos­ing your­self here?”

“It is an idea of mine, cap­tain. But I shall re­main per­fect­ly neu­tral dur­ing the en­gage­ment.”

“As you like then, Pi­lot, as you like,” said the cap­tain, as he re­sumed his place on the quar­ter-​deck.

At this mo­ment a can­non ball whis­tled through the air.

“Good,” said Willis; “the com­modore gives the sig­nal.”

“That shot,” ob­served Jack, “passed at no great dis­tance from your head, Willis. You had bet­ter take a mus­ket in self-​de­fence. Be­sides, that ship is En­glish, and you are a Scotch­man.”

“The ship is a Spaniard by birth,” replied Willis, “and it is pret­ty well time it was con­vert­ed in­to fire­wood, for the mat­ter of that. But it is the flag, my boy--_that_ is nei­ther Span­ish nor En­glish.”

“What is it, then?” in­quired Fritz.

“It is the union-​jack, Mas­ter Fritz. It is the en­sign of Scot­land, Eng­land, and Ire­land unit­ed un­der one bon­net; and as such, it is as sa­cred in my eyes as if it bore the cross of St. An­drew.”

Mus­ket balls were now rat­tling pret­ty freely amongst the shrouds. The young men lev­elled their mus­kets and fired.

Soon af­ter, the two ships were abreast of each oth­er, and al­most at the same in­stant both dis­charged a dead­ly broad­side. The con­flict be­came gen­er­al. The crash­ing of the wood­work and the roar­ing of the guns was deaf­en­ing. A thick smoke en­veloped the two ves­sels, so that noth­ing could be seen of the one from the oth­er; still the fir­ing and crash­ing went on. The sails were torn to shreds, the deck was en­cum­bered with frag­ments of tim­ber; men were now and then falling, ei­ther killed or wound­ed, and a fa­tigue par­ty was con­stant­ly en­gaged in re­mov­ing the bod­ies. There are peo­ple who con­sid­er such a spec­ta­cle mag­nif­icent; but that is on­ly be­cause they have nev­er wit­nessed its hor­rors.

Al­ready many im­mor­tal souls had re­turned to their Mak­er; many sons had be­come or­phans, and many wives had been de­prived of their hus­bands; but as yet there was noth­ing to in­di­cate on which side vic­to­ry was to be de­clared. Soon, how­ev­er, a cry of fire was raised, which caused great con­fu­sion; and an­oth­er cry, an­nounc­ing that the cap­tain had fall­en, in­creased the dis­or­der.

A ball crashed through the taffrail, near where Jack and Fritz were stand­ing; it passed be­tween them, but they were both severe­ly wound­ed by the splin­ters, and were con­veyed by Willis to the cock­pit. The doc­tor, see­ing his old friend Jack hand­ed down the lad­der, has­tened to­wards him and tore out a piece of wood from the fleshy part of his arm. He next turned to Fritz, who had re­ceived a se­vere flesh-​wound on the shoul­der. When both wounds were ban­daged, he left the care of the young men to Willis, who had es­caped with a few scratch­es, which, how­ev­er, were bleed­ing pret­ty freely--to these he did not pay the slight­est at­ten­tion.

“How stands the con­test?” in­quired Fritz in a weak voice.

“The _Hobo­ken_ is done for,” replied Willis; “the com­modore was prepar­ing to board when we left the deck; but it does not make much dif­fer­ence; we shall go to Eng­land in­stead of Amer­ica, that is all.”

“God's will be done,” said Fritz.

Just then Bill Stubbs was swung down in a ham­mock; both his legs had been shot off by a can­non ball. The sur­geon could on­ly now at­tend to a tithe of his pa­tients, so nu­mer­ous had the wound­ed be­come. A glance at the new com­er sat­is­fied him that he was be­yond all hu­man skill, and he di­rect­ed his at­ten­tion to the cas­es that promised some hopes of re­cov­ery. Willis, see­ing that his old com­rade was aban­doned to die al­most un­car­ed for, staunched his wounds as well as he could, fetched him a pan­niken of wa­ter, and per­formed a num­ber of oth­er lit­tle acts of kind­ness and good will. This he did, less with a view of ob­tain­ing an ex­pla­na­tion from him at a mo­ment when no man lies, than to mit­igate the pangs of his last con­vul­sions. For an in­stant the old mariner's body ap­peared re-​an­imat­ed with life. His eyes were fixed up­on Willis with an in­ef­fa­ble ex­pres­sion of recog­ni­tion and re­gret. He con­vul­sive­ly grasped the Pi­lot's hand and pressed it to his breast, and his lips part­ed as if to speak. Willis bent his ear to the mouth of the dy­ing man, but all that fol­lowed was an ex­pir­ing sigh. His earth­ly ca­reer was end­ed.

The hardy sailor who is sup­posed nev­er to shed a tear, then wiped the cor­ner of his eyes. Next he turned to the chil­dren of his adop­tion, whose pale faces in­di­cat­ed the amount of blood they had shed, and whose wounds, if he could have trans­ferred them to him­self, would have less pained his pow­er­ful mus­cles than they now grieved his ex­cel­lent heart.

A par­ty of board­ers from the en­emy had tak­en pos­ses­sion of the ship. Willis re­port­ed him­self to the of­fi­cer in com­mand, and at his re­quest, Fritz and Jack, to­geth­er with the car­go of the pin­nace, were con­veyed on board the vic­to­ri­ous schooner. Short­ly af­ter the _Hobo­ken_ was despatched to Bermu­da as a prize, with the pris­on­ers, the wound­ed, and the dy­ing.

The old tub that had gained this vic­to­ry was named the _Ar­zo­bis­po_, hav­ing, as Willis sup­posed, been cap­tured in the Span­ish Main. It was un­der the com­mand of Com­modore Trun­cheon, bet­ter known in the fleet by the _soubri­quet_ of Old Fly­blow.

The _Ar­zo­bis­po_, though old and clum­sy, was a stout-​built craft; and so thick was its hide, that the broad­sides of the Yan­kee had done the hull no dam­age to speak of. The su­per­struc­ture, how­ev­er, was com­plete­ly shat­tered; the masts and rig­ging hung like sweeps over the sides; and, to the un­prac­tised eye, the ship was a com­plete wreck. A few days, how­ev­er, suf­ficed to put ev­ery­thing to rights again so far as re­gards ex­ter­nal ap­pear­ance; but how this im­promp­tu car­pen­try would stand a storm was an­oth­er ques­tion.

The com­modore was on his way to Eu­rope when he fell in with the Yan­kee, and, notwith­stand­ing the dis­abled con­di­tion of the ship, he re­solved to con­tin­ue his voy­age. Some of the of­fi­cers ex­pos­tu­lat­ed with him on the haz­ard of cross­ing the At­lantic in so shaky a trim. He on­ly got red in the face, and said that he had crossed the her­ring-​pond hun­dreds of times in crafts not half so sea­wor­thy. He was like the

Frog­gy who would a woo­ing go, Whether his moth­er would let him or no.

The con­se­quences of this de­fi­ance of ad­vice were fa­tal to Old Fly­blow; for, a week or two af­ter his vic­to­ry, he was pounced up­on by the French corvette, _Boudeuse_, which was fresh, heav­ily armed, and well manned. The com­modore's ju­ry masts were knocked to pieces by the first broad­side, his flag went by the board, and he was com­plete­ly at the en­emy's mer­cy. Willis lent a hand this time with a good will; but it was of no use, the wreck would not obey the helm, and the corvette hov­ered about, fir­ing broad­sides, and send­ing in dis­charges of mus­ketry, when and where she liked. It was on­ly when the com­modore saw clear­ly that there was nei­ther mast nor sail enough to yaw the ship, that he waved his cocked hat in to­ken of sur­ren­der.

Fritz and Jack were still con­fined be­low with their wounds, when Willis brought them word that they would have to shift them­selves and their car­go once more. The cap­tain re­ceived them on board the _Boudeuse_ with marked cour­tesy, and in­formed them that he was bound di­rect for Havre de Grace.

“It seems, then,” said the Pi­lot, “that nei­ther Amer­ica nor Eng­land is to be our des­ti­na­tion af­ter all. But nev­er mind, there are no lack of sur­geons amongst the _moun­seers_.”

“If we go on this way much longer,” said Jack, sigh­ing, “we shall be car­ried round the world with­out ar­riv­ing any­where. Alas, my poor moth­er!”